Tuesday, June 2, 2015

She was always plain Madame Merle, the widow
of a Swiss negociant, with a small income and a large bosom, who stayed with
“people” a great deal and was almost universally “liked.” Ralph Touchett
could not have known, however, though it would have bedeviled him to
extinction, that this urbane creature, still very much in her prime, was beloved
among the cigar-smoking lions of Europe for administering a sublime
felatio. Her specialty was in expertly sprinkling her generous endowment
with the spume of male ecstasy. His health being so beastly abject, Ralph
had no spunk to speak of. But the thought was never far from his
mind. In the lustier days of his adolescence he had taken to calling on
Lord Warburton at Lockleigh for long week-ends, particularly when the duke’s youngest
sister was there to grace the company with her sparkling eyes. She and
Ralph had somehow arrived at a silent understanding between them. She
used to masturbate young Touchett behind the curtains in the library on late
afternoons. Ralph would shoot what looked to her like jets of clotted
cream into the thick velvety folds of the drapes while she, with her free hand,
lifted her skirt and fingered the button of her secret garden. Lord
Warburton was fully cognizant of the arrangement and wished regretfully that
she had not been his youngest sister so he, too, could partake of such
ministrations. He was scrupulous for an aristocrat. Of late,
however, his lordship was much occupied with Pansy. Mrs. Osmond had met
him at her cousin Ralph’s hotel the day after he had failed to give her
tangible proof of his sincerity toward the girl. While Isabel knew his
lordship to be most trustworthy, he had been unusually distracted during his
visit to the palazzo last Thursday night. The royal peer fidgeted throughout
the evening and kept interrupting his train of thought to wonder aloud if any
stray cats had not found their way into the house. “Do you hear mewing,”
he would interject quite impertinently. Pansy thought it a ploy to
distract her from the recurring borborygmus which she perceived over the
general din of conversation at dinner. He pantomimed a gentleman enjoying
himself, in reality picking at the fennel and roast chicken with his silver
fork, filling and refilling Pansy’s small untouched glass of sherry to
overflowing, only to excuse himself abruptly several times for short intervals.
When he reappeared, he was more pale than an apparition in black tie. After myriad departures and returns, Osmond asked gaily whether the
grounds of the Roman villa were to the Englishman’s liking. “I am sure
it is very smart,” said the great lord, “but just now I am making a special
study of your Turkish commode.” Pansy could not help but notice that the
duke’s impeccable white cuffs were trimmed with specks of shit.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Another summer left us rich in bikinis
And rich in friendship. My friends
Let us toast the acres of air that separate us,
The forests of people who come between.

Indeed, we share many of the same habits:
Staring intently, listening closely,
Hiding behind curtains, even on Sunday.Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.
But I can! It's surprising how close
Long-range photography can bring us. I know
Your begonias are growing nicely,
And we're on opposite sides of the park!

Some day, I want to be inside the radius
Of the perfumes you apply so liberally.
Some day, we'll think of the whales,
Probably almost at the same time.

You could say we're inching closer
To intimacy. The slow creep where
Neither of us occupy the moment,
Yet the moment, like here, wants to be there.